Letter: Legislature moving in wrong direction

It is easy to focus on the President Donald Trump Show lurching along, drowning out the fiasco unfolding in Des Moines.

I was well into my teaching career in 1974 when the Iowa Legislature and then Gov. Robert Ray put together a collective bargaining law, which endured and flourished for years. What appears wacky at this time was that legislative accomplishment featured a bipartisan effort.

The Republican trifecta is in the process of moving Iowa back to vindictive Know-Nothingism.

Under the guise of fiscal responsibility, the agencies charged with providing services to Iowa's most vulnerable residents have been mostly gutted. The people who teach our children, plow our streets, collect our refuse, return our electricity when we are terrorized by ice storms, wind damage and floods, put their lives on the line every day by walking into our prisons to work, and so many more, have been stripped of their rights to bargain for things most people take for granted. And our governor proclaimed it a great day for the taxpayers of Iowa.

There could be more cognitive high-order proposals such as forcing college professors to reveal their politics, stand-your-ground gun laws, raising our speed limit to 75 mph. We in Iowa are getting a great look at human nature when the doors of responsibility and restraint are thrown open. And, a dark side as well.

Jack Pilling

Cedar Rapids